British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers • Hacker News Board

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#231

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

alias_neo wrote: post #172

Silhouette wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that kind of money, you might want to get a bit of advice on the right words to use before giving up. The thing about "Your statutory rights are not affected" is that your statutory rights are not affected, whether they care or not. Even if you decide not to fight this one, please consider informing one of the major consumer rights organisations so if there is a design flaw and others are experiencing the same pr…

Although I understand, and I have done so in the past and won, after speaking with both OnePlus and Amazon I came away feeling that it was my fault. I had a case on the phone which I removed just an hour earlier because it was dirty underneath, and wit lockdown and working from home I wasn't leaving the house, I saw no need to put it back on, felt like Karma. Yes I believe the design contributed significantly to it b…

That's totally fair enough. You have to pick the fights you think are worth taking, and if it's just going to cause you stress then maybe this one simply isn't. I hope you manage to sort your phone out one way or another.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#232

Post by bserge » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

celestialcheese wrote: post #166

cunidev wrote: post #40

Not even mentioning the hardware bits, I have been collaborating with postmarketOS for a while now, and believe that the main thing we need to make those devices longer-lasting would be an unlockable bootloader by law. This sounds so logical (why cannot I run, by voiding the warranty, any code I want on my machine, whatever it is?), yet apparently so hard to make openly illegal, since the problem is barely acknowledg…

In the US, at least, unlocking devices is legal as of 2015(?) through DMCA exemptions, which has been huge for recyclers and refurbishers. Still couldn't get game console unlocking through, but at least phones / tablets / other devices that are locked can be unlocked and resold. https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/11/01/digital-de...

How was it that the US version of the Note 9 (with a Qualcomm SoC) had a locked bootloader while the EU version (with an Exynos SoC) had an unlocked one? Is that still the case?

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#233

Post by jaywalk » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #143

jaywalk wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung fridges haven't run Android in a while though. They run Samsung's own OS called Tizen.

That's 'cool' (pun intended), they'll be hacked while still in the cardboard shipping container. Tizen is about as leaky as it gets. Anyway, GP asked if there were fridges running Android, yes there are. Even if they are not being sold by Samsung in the present, it is a safe assumption that not all of these have died in the line of duty. "Aren't there already fridges that run Android?" Can be confidently answered in…

I was simply adding more information, not refuting your answer, so "chill" out a little.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#234

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

alerighi wrote: post #218

crazygringo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want thin phones. A non-removable battery allows for thinness you simply cannot get otherwise. And while you can argue about whether thin laptops are necessary, for people who carry their phones in their pants pockets, an extra couple millimeters gone is genuinely a meaningful difference. There's no propaganda there.

Yes, they made thinner phones but they made more huge and heavy. Nowadays it's nearly impossible to find a phone that has a screen smaller than 6". I mean, to me it's too much, it can even fit in some of my pockets! Give me back the old phones, removable battery, more thick, but more compact in the end, and more easy to carry around. The bigger screen it's in the end useless to me.

Smaller screen size is what the iPhone SE is for! It's what I use, precisely because pockets :)

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#235

Post by bserge » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

plainnoodles wrote: post #90

emouryto wrote: post #16

Well, smartphones must be updated to include better spyware. And newer computers are also better locked down to allow better surveillance. So, the older ones can't break down fast enough! You don't want a repairable computer so creeps install, like, a Linux distro. You want disposable TPM machines with Windows 11 Home Edition and unstoppable "telemetry".

To be fair, TPM's are really cool from a hardware perspective. They're HSM's which can fundamentally change what threat models on your OS look like. Unfortunately, the purpose here will be to use the fact that most users use a non-free OS to turn these TPMs against the user in order to make DRM harder to break.

I've been using laptops with TPM for a decade now. Never enabled the damn thing because if it failed, I'd be completely locked out of my computer. I'm not a CIA agent, I'm not a threat to any state, I don't even work for some big corp, why do I need that level of security?

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#236

Post by alkonaut » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

axelthegerman wrote: post #33

kleiba wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own a smart TV, so this question is probably a bit naive - but what happens if you don't connect your smart TV to the internet?

It still takes forever to turn on, has a bunch of menus nobody needs and probably keeps bugging you to connect it to the Internet :( Takes me a minute to turn on my stupid smart TV and switch it to HDMI in

I have a Samsung and it’s slow but not that slow. It’s a 2014 I think and I probably get picture (DVB-T) in around 10 seconds.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#237

Post by bserge » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

ShaneMcGowan wrote: post #26

ivoras wrote: post #21

It's all fun and games until your fridge gets reclasiffied as a computer.

Trying to find a good non smart tv is impossible now, I want dumb tv and dumb fridge

Get a laser projector, it's life changing.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#238

Post by saurik » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #174

celestialcheese wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, at least, unlocking devices is legal as of 2015(?) through DMCA exemptions, which has been huge for recyclers and refurbishers. Still couldn't get game console unlocking through, but at least phones / tablets / other devices that are locked can be unlocked and resold. https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/11/01/digital-de...

These exemptions have to be renewed every 3 years. The 2018 exemptions for "jailbreaking" phones and tablets are still in force, but they will expire if not renewed.

This was changed in the last cycle or so so if there aren't people challenging petitions they get semi-automatic renewals. Honestly, for unlocking bootloaders (note I initially wrote this comment in the mental context of carrier unlocks and then immediately went and edited it as I realized) we probably never needed the exemptions anyway, as there is a standing exempting for interop (which still does most of the work: the argument for the extra exemption is to provide one last step for the end-user as in 2009 it wasn't clear they could run the result, but currently everyone things they should be).

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#239

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

R0b0t1 wrote: post #210

alerighi wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The radio firmware is something that is at another level. Even if you end up unlocking the bootloader, that doesn't give you access to the radio firmware, that is proprietary and needs to be signed, and cannot be modified. It's basically seen by the OS as a modem to which they talk trough AT commands (yes, they are still in use), the same thing that you would obtain by plugging in an USB modem to a normal PC. For Wi-…

This is not always true. There are chips where the radio DSP cores have their program loaded into main memory and it's unsigned. You talk to them with mutexes and shared memory pages. There is also no legal basis for requiring radio controllers to have signature enforced firmware loading. He's being sarcastic. It's think of the children but with electronics and PII.

There is also no legal basis for requiring radio controllers to have signature enforced firmware loading.

If someone actually tried to write their own radio firmware and made a mistake, there very soon would be.

Messing around with radio transmission is not a game. Make enough noise on the wrong frequency and now you're interfering with communications for emergency services responding to a disaster or air traffic control guiding flights in crowded airspace, with a very real danger of loss of life. And there is no way for anyone to stop you until they've physically tracked down the source of the bad transmission, which can take hours.

I am very much in favour of rights to repair and against almost any restriction on what individuals can do with their own hardware, but giving people who don't know what they're doing unrestricted access to a radio transmitter on that basis is a bit like giving everyone in your city a button that detonates the nuke because you believe in a right to bear arms. At some point, you need to draw a line and say only qualified people past this point, or very bad things start to happen.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#240

Post by alkonaut » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

ShaneMcGowan wrote: post #26

ivoras wrote: post #21

It's all fun and games until your fridge gets reclasiffied as a computer.

Trying to find a good non smart tv is impossible now, I want dumb tv and dumb fridge

I don’t want to pay a premium for dumb TV though. Just like a laptop without crapware is more expensive because the crapware actually subsidizes it, a dumb TV can be more expensive.

But if you pick a good (quick, without annoying UI, allows USB upgrade and offline configuration and so on) smart TV and just don’t connect it, I think that’s probably a better idea than getting a commercial monitor for example.